are tapping into the idea of more interactivetheme park and haunt experiences.”Lora Ivanova, founder and CEO ofScareLA, agrees that an increasing numberof haunt consumers are looking fordeeper engagement in a more theatricalexperience, while a sub-segment of peoplewho are bored with traditional hauntedhouses and theme parks are looking formore extreme experiences that border onviolent encounters.

Ivanova also predicts that Virtual
Reality (VR) will play a real role in haunt
attractions in a couple of years. “VR devices
have become much more affordable at the
consumer level, and we have already begun
to experiment with it,” she says. “We expect
it to be a big trend for 2018.”

DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE
HAUNTED HOUSE VISITOR

According to the annual Halloween survey
conducted for the National Retail Federation
(NRF) by Prosper Insights & Analytics,

69.1% of U.S. adults aged 18 and over
planned to celebrate Halloween in 2016; of
those, 20.9% said they would be visiting a
haunted house.

Because NRF/Prosper Insights reports
its haunted house data for people who had
already said they celebrated Halloween,
The Nightmare Zone recalculated the
percentages so that they would reflect the
total population. For 2016, haunted house
responses were multiplied by 69.1%. For

2015 and 2016, the share of U.S. adults
celebrating Halloween was 64.0% and

66.7%, respectively.

Using that method, we find that 14.4%
of the adult population or about 35. 7
million people visited haunted houses
in 2016. Based on survey data for 2014

through 2016, an average of 13.2% of
adults visited haunted houses annually over
the past three years.

The term haunted house was not
defined in the survey, so we can assume that
people included a wide range of haunted
attractions, from backyard and garage
haunts to destination haunted attractions
to theme parks and zoos. Even with that
broad definition, the NRF/Prosper Insights
study provides breakouts of data by gender,
age and geographic region that will help us
characterize the haunt consumer.

First, let’s look at gender. A slightly
higher percentage of men than women
visit haunted houses, but the gap has been
shrinking. For the three-year period from

2014 to 2016, 53% of haunted house
visitors were male, 47% female. In 2016,
though, the ratio was almost equal at 51%
men and 49% women.

This data seems to jibe with anecdotal
information. Young women seem to be
enjoying the horror genre more for their own
sake, whether they are out on a date or not.

When it comes to age, the target
customer for haunt attractions is a young
adult, particularly in the 18- to 24-year-
old age group. The likelihood of an adult
visiting a haunted house steadily decreases
with age, while the likelihood of an adult
celebrating Halloween does not really drop
off until age 45.

One-quarter of adults aged 18 to 24
visited haunted houses in the 2014-to-2016
period, NRF/Prosper Insights data shows.
In 2016 alone, 26.4% of this group went
haunting. For 25- to 34-year-olds, the
likelihood of someone visiting a haunted
attraction is down to one in five. The 35-
to 44-year old bracket is three percentage
points lower. Among adults aged 65 and up,
less than 3% visit haunted houses.

For comparison, look back at page
9, where we break out the Halloween
celebrator/participant by age. An almost
equal percentage of the population,
about 20%, celebrates or participates in
Halloween in the 18-to- 24, 25-to- 34 and
35-to- 44 age groups.